Adam Welch Archives | Wonderland

Flashback Friday: One Direction – They Call It Puppy Love

Wonderland Staff — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 09:19:39 +0000

As millions of teenager girls prepare themselves for tonight’s US and world premiere of One Direction: This Is Us, we investigate the fear and the fandom of the world’s most devoted Directioners in this cover story from the archives.

Originally published in the Obsession Issue, the Nov/Dec 2012 issue of Wonderland.

Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Liam Payne, together known as One Direction, are currently among the most adored individuals on the planet. Despite their astonishing global success (and many millions in the bank), they’re keen to hold on to their own normality. But the same can’t be said for their wildly imaginative, obsessive and transgressive fanbase. Or can it? Wonderland investigates…

“Zayn tastes like beer and chips and Liam drops the bag, effectively spilling the garbage he’d thrown in earlier, to cup Zayn’s jaw. He doesn’t know if it’s because he needs Zayn to be closer, or if he just needs something to hold onto. From the way Liam’s body is reacting, he thinks it might be both. For two blissful heartbeats, they kiss, and nothing – nothing – Liam has ever experienced can compare to this.”

Girls, boys, tabloid journalists, don’t get too excited. The above is not what happened when Wonderland met One Direction – you know, the biggest boy band on the planet right now. It’s the work of a 17-year-old American girl who goes under the handle of “Mindless Dreamer” on Onedirectionfanfiction.com. At the time of writing, this site hosts around 30,000 stories (over 200,000,000 words in total) featuring Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Liam Payne, the ex-X Factor pop idols who have become the show’s most astonishing success story. Mindless Dreamer is a finalist in four out of fifteen categories in the site’s inaugural best-of awards (best Louis, best Liam, best slash, best alternate universe), the winners of which should have been announced by the time you read this. She has about four long fanfics on the go, one of which, Drunk Texting (a story about Tomlinson accidentally texting a stranger’s phone whose number is similar to Styles’), is over 50,000 words long – and counting. Another, set in a different reality from our own, is about what happens when Malik, working with Tomlinson as an assistant to – wait for it – the grim reaper, is asked to collect the soul of Liam Payne on Earth. Seriously. In her bio she says: “I used to be a normal person. Then I started liking One Direction.”

A lot of “normal” people like One Direction. Yet, they do an awful lot of abnormal things. Recent press coverage of the boys, who according to a biography of Simon Cowell released this year, are now worth more than £100 million collectively, has been peppered with tales of how the band’s fans take to Twitter to issue death threats to their girlfriends, how they make up scurrilous rumours and rail bitterly at fans of other acts, viciously hounding any that would detract from their idols. As the boys’ fame continues to skyrocket (largely because, this February, they did the impossible and broke America, becoming the first UK act ever to debut at no. 1 in the Billboard album charts) the niche activities of their fans are making news of their own. At the beginning of October, the world was turned on to the burgeoning One Direction fan fiction community when 16-year- old Emily Baker had bagged herself a book deal by posting One Direction fanfic Loving the Band on web-publishing site movellas.com. But even this story only really scratched the surface of a fascinating, international online community that has its own laws, its own logic. Of course, illogical, mass-obsession about a bunch of cute guys who sing romantic songs is hardly new. But the buzz around One Direction marks something of a turning point in the history of pop culture. Suddenly, thanks to Twitter, Tumblr and all the internet’s other self-aggrandising personal broadcasting platforms, the obsessive imaginings of millions of lustful teenagers are being played out in a very public forum. Anyone is welcome to stare into the eyes of the madness.

Given that they are surrounded by such a level of hysteria, it’s a little surprising that, in person, the members of One Direction are so very normal. It’s actually quite disarming – each is so much like any regular teenage boy that our interview feels a little bit like hanging out in a sixth form common room. Malik and Horan flick through a copy of Teen Now, sniggering at a cheesy poster of rival boy band The Wanted. “I like to kiss this sort of thing,” says Tomlinson, sarcastically, “I think they look sick in it, don’t you?” Malik joins in, pointing: “Yeah he looks proper good there.” In-jokes fly around the room, causing Payne to chuckle between sentences as he answers questions. Horan fiddles with his phone a lot, and sings little snatches of Chris Brown songs. Styles is attentive but seems a little bit tired.

Actually, they all seem exhausted, like puppies post-kibble. “They’ve been long days these past three weeks,” says Payne, adding that they rarely finish doing interviews, photoshoots or recording sessions before 9pm. Of course, they try to actually live their lives too: “If you finish late, by the time you go home you can’t fall asleep, not ‘til one or two in the morning,” says Horan. (His nocturnal routine became apparent this September when he and Justin Bieber had a late night noodle sesh after the VMAs). Payne, who shortly after our interview, was reported to be going on dates with Leona Lewis, reckons he gets about five hours shut-eye a night. So does Styles, the ladies’ man of the group (but you can’t help suspecting that it’s rather less than that). Asked what they would do if they had any time off right now, they all reply, “sleep”.

Clearly a little weary of doing interviews, One Direction often get distracted and veer off-topic – one quasi-fruitful digression reveals their favourite club move is “the cardigan dance” – best executed, when “hammered,” by grabbing the lapels of your cardigan and pulling them about in time to the music. Sometimes it takes them a while to get to the point because they’re busy ribbing each other. Tomlinson farts about halfway through the session – all laugh.

This is not the kind of behaviour that’s particularly conducive to a good interview. But then again, it’s all part of the unashamed, run-of- the-mill adolescent schtick that has made them great. It’s got a market value – and the boys know it. When asked to what they attribute their massive success, Payne hits the nail on the head: “I think for us, the main thing is that we’ve just kind of been ourselves, that’s what people like. I think a lot of people get into [our] situation and you hear they’ve changed, but we‘ve just stayed ourselves.” Tomlinson agrees – he stresses that it’s important to them that they don’t dance, or all dress in matching outfits. “In the past, with previous boy bands, I think they felt like they had to meet a stereotype,” he says. “We’re just ourselves: stupid, immature and quirky.” (Meanwhile, as if to prove his point, Malik and Horan playfight on the other side of the room).

One Direction’s untrammelled boy-next- door-ish-ness is obviously one reason they’ve got so massive, why the obsessive fans find it so easy to identify with and fantasise about them. But another force in their favour has been Twitter. “I think [it’s] definitely helped us in terms of getting abroad – spread the word between people and their friends in foreign countries,” says Styles. Of course, it’s also changed the game for One Direction in another way, allowing the band’s followers (between six and seven million each) to have – or rather, perceive themselves as having – exclusive, instant and personal access to the boys. “Back when we were lads there were certain celebrities that we’d wanna get in touch with,” says Payne, reasonably. (True to public perception, he’s the most mature and Dad-like of the group.) “That’s why Twitter’s so useful,” he continues. “It’s nice that fans can get 135 close to us and ask us questions and stuff.” As a reward for the attention and loyalty, the boys often tweet back at their followers. How, when there are so many? “I just do it really randomly,” says Payne. “I dip my finger in and just kind of pick one.”

Unfortunately, One Direction’s Twitter following has not always been as “nice” as they might like: this summer, it began to seem like the fruits of the global obsession with the band were finally beginning to get to them. In August, Malik temporarily deleted his Twitter account, so enraged was he at comments (concerning his relationship with girlfriend, Perrie Edwards) posted by trolls on the social networking site. A month later, Louis Tomlinson lost his cool when his mother was abused by out-of-control fans on Twitter. “Can I ask why this is ok?” he tweeted, “To think someone would speak to my Mum like that sickens me. Grow the fuck up!” Shortly afterwards, Payne split up with his girlfriend, who, apparently, had been troubled by the negative comments she was receiving on social media as a result of being in the relationship.

Does it bother them – the fact that what seemed like the perfect marketing tool for One Direction has actually backfired a little bit? Surprisingly, only a little. “Twitter sometimes becomes a place for people to give opinions on stuff which, sometimes, you don’t really need,” says Payne. Tomlinson chips in: “Sometimes you want to say ‘Have you quite finished?’” At the same time, he maintains, no amount of backchat will make him be too self-conscious about what he puts out there via social media. “You have to be completely yourself,” he says, reinforcing the band’s WYSIWYG stance. “If the papers are going to write something about it, at least you’re being who you are,” he says. The boys show a similar stubbornness when I suggest, perhaps, if they were a little less public about their girlfriends (boybands like Take That, for example, were always encouraged by management to be perennially single in public), then maybe their partners would not have to endure so much attention. “That’s shit,” says Louis. “That means you don’t lead a life that’s real. You wouldn’t be able to go out anywhere publicly with your girlfriend.”

When One Direction do go out in public, they, naturally, get mobbed. They’re obviously very bored of talking about crazy things their fans have done (a couple of days after our interview, theyinfactgetinabitofbotheronaNew Zealand radio show by including this in a list of 12 topics they would rather not be asked about), but they feed me a couple of good stories. There’s the legion of bare breasts that assailed their car on a recent trip Sweden. There’s fans who took Tomlinson’s hat, others who nearly pulled Payne’s hands off, another lot who, when he lost a shoe, bought it back off the tramp who picked it up, and gave it back to him. Alongside the fans, there’s the paparazzi, but they don’t seem to mind that. “We kind of get on with them,” says Styles. “If you just be nice to them, they’re really nice to you,” says Horan.

I ask them if they read the mind-boggling stuff written about them online. Malik says he tries not to. Tomlinson gets a bit agitated again: “Some people just literally make up stuff that’s not true. When do you just sit there and think ‘You know what, I’m going to make up a really horrible rumour.’” Payne is drily understated about the fan fiction and the blogs: “Some of those are quite naughty. Quite graphic.” He’s not lying. Among the innumerable One Direction blogs out there, most of which are hosted on accessible microblogging site Tumblr, many simply collect animated GIFs of the boys looking especially cute, but a sizeable amount are also about catching them out in what looks like rampant homoerotic flirting.

The idea of them all getting it on with each other has almost universal traction among fans, with a slew of blogs devoted exclusively to coverage of hypothetical One Direction pairings (not to mention many, many “slash” or boy-on-boy erotic stories). “Larry Stylinson”, the descriptor for the imaginary relationship between Tomlinson and Styles (which Tomlinson has vigorously denied in the press, claiming that such talk has damaged his relationship both with his girlfriend, Eleanor Calder and Styles himself) is the most popular topic. However, every permutation – whether it’s Lilo, Zarry, Larry, Niam, Ziall, Nouis, Narry, Zouis or Ziam – has its own niche following.

A lot of the blogs are aggressively sexy: the description on DedicatedToZiam.tumblr. com reads “Basically just two teenage girls releasing their One Direction sexual frustration and impatiently waiting for the Ziam sex tape.” Another Tumblr, Shower of Cunts (a reference to a derogatory remark Horan made to some fans in July at Dublin Airport), opens with: “I just want to fuck the shit out of Harry Styles and Niall Horan… :)) That’s pretty much what this blog is about.” On the same site, a section collects images of the band that have been overlaid with animated images of stick figures performing sex acts on the boys (each one is labelled with an arrow and the caption “ME”).

Other blogs can just seem plain odd to outsiders, in particular, those that focus on romantic, literary creations. On these, bloggers write short “ships” (in which they pair a fan with a member of the band, detailing why they get on and what their favourite song is), or “imagines” (more extended colour pieces envisaging fantasy situations), and their readers send in requests to be featured in specific scenarios. Some requests are straightforward, such as “my first date with Niall”. Others are bizarre – on theWonderfulWorldofUs.tumblr. com there’s a short story about Horan helping his (imaginary) wife through a traumatic miscarriage.

What motivates this strange behaviour? I manage to get in touch with a couple of the girls who run these sites, and of course, like the boys, they seem pretty normal too. Harsharan Malinao, the Virginia- based 18-year-old who operates “Shower of Cunts” is blasé about her purple prose. I ask her what she’d think if One Direction actually had a look at her blog. “Oh man, haha, I’d be a bit embarrassed,” she writes. “I try not to put anything too weird on there. It doesn’t really matter though because it’s all just for fun haha.” Does she think it’s OK to objectify these boys? “I don’t try to objectify them,” she replies. “And if someone ever did accuse me of aggressively objectifying them I wouldn’t really know what to say besides ‘I’m Sorry.’”

Seventeen-year-old Canadian Blogging duo KandM, who take requests for ships and imagines on “The Wonderful World of Us”, are more philosophical. Why do they think people ask them to write these stories? “Because they want to feel included in the boys’ lives in some way. Through requesting things like ships and imagines, it brings you a little closer to the boys because you are a character in the same story as them.” I have to bring up the story about the miscarriage – it’s pretty gruesome. Isn’t this supposed to be about wish fulfilment? “I guess the whole reason why we chose to write that one was because people need to know that life is not all perfect and it doesn’t always go the way we want it to go,” they say, speaking as one via email.

Every fan I write to is united on one front, that One Direction’s unique appeal is their approachability. “There’s a feeling when you watch the boys that makes them feel like your friends,” says Alice Crosbie, an Australian fan. “They’re relatable and they don’t act like they’re untouchable.” Malinao agrees: “I really like how they seem so genuine and they’re just weird and funny.” I ask the boys if they, in turn, feel close to their fans. “Definitely, yeah,” says Styles. “There’s fans that have been coming to see us since the first week on X Factor that we still know now. It’s nice seeing them on a first-name basis and having a chat with them.” In their experience, what do the fans want from them? “A [Twitter] follow,” says Styles. “I think they just want to be noticed,” adds Tomlinson. Payne remarks “I think there’s a bit of competition between all the fans as well…”

It’s easy to get absorbed in the weird and wonderful world of One Direction’s obsessive fanbase and forget that what they’re famous for, ostensibly, is music. Their new album, Take Me Home, is out early November, and, judging from the success of lead single “Live While We’re Young,” is going to be huge. They recorded the record in “three weeks” (according to Styles, “a month” according to Payne), and say the intense experience made sure the album is all killer, no filler. “There were tracks that we thought ‘oh it might be ok, it might be really bad,’” says Styles. “But because we didn’t have time we could just focus on the songs that worked. Now, looking at the album as a line-up, we’re really happy with every song.”

After the album is released they’re going on tour for most of 2013. This pretty much derails the question “Where do you want to be in a year’s time,” so I try for 10. “I don’t know,” says Styles. “If someone had asked us two years ago, I don’t think we’d have imagined we’d be doing this now.” Does the adulation vary from country to country? “To be honest it’s surprising how similar the fans are in different places,” says Styles. “You’d expect there to be a bit more of a change. [They’re] really supportive, everywhere and they’ve been amazing everywhere we’ve been.”

Having sifted through the blogs, the fiction, the “bullshit” trolling, the counter-bullshit (there’s a Tumblr group called “Directioners Against Bullshit,” which Malinao is a member of), it’s not exactly clear how much the fans care about the reality of the boys, what they’re actually like. Instead, images of these gleeful, shiny-eyed individuals have become a platform for a global, unadulterated fantasy that, as it gets more and more extreme, gets more and more fascinating. Given that the boys swear all they want to do is present themselves as honestly as possible, is there a sense that some fans have missed the point? “I think there’s a lot of things that the fans don’t know about us,” says Payne. “I think our relationship doesn’t really play out as much as people think. People still ask whether we really get on or not, and we genuinely do. A lot of people don’t believe that, they think it’s some fake thing where we have to get on because of the position we’re in.”

Overall, the most surprising thing is how little One Direction are bothered by the extent to which their images and personalities have been manipulated, reappropriated and dissected by their fanbase. But then again, they’re part of a generation for which all this kind of life- as-brand activity is thoroughly normal. In fact, let’s be honest, it wasn’t so long ago that they were X Factor-watching superfans themselves. “If I was a fan and found out that I’d been lied to the whole time… it would be like, ‘how do you believe anything they say?’,” says Payne, justifying the carefree way in which the group live very public private lives. “We’ve always, from the start, wanted to show the fans us, as people,” says Styles. Presumably, there will come a point where they’ll have to be a bit more careful, a bit more afraid. But, then again, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon.

One Direction: This Is Us premieres worldwide Friday, 30 August.

Words: Adam Welch
Images: Michael Hauptman
Styling: Julia Sarr-Jamois

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ALICE ENGLERT: The Beautiful Creature

Wonderland Staff — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:09:35 +0000

Beautiful Creatures star Alice Englert talks about what it feels like to see your face plastered all over the Underground, and how being Jane Campion’s daughter sets you up for Hollywood. Read the magazine feature here.

As 2012 came to a close it was pretty hard to miss Alice Englert. Thanks to the poster campaigns for Sally Potter’s Ginger & Rosa (in which she starred opposite Elle Fanning), and upcoming blockbuster Beautiful Creatures (an awesome-looking fantasy romp, based on the bestselling novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, and featuring Englert in her first lead role), it almost seemed like you couldn’t hop on the Tube without seeing her face peering down from the walls.

Which goes to show that at just 18 years old, Englert is already shaping up to be one of the stars of her generation. As if her undeniable acting prowess weren’t enough (her performance in Ginger & Rosa earned her a British Independent Film Award nomination – she’s also an excellent musician. For proof, check YouTube, or the Beautiful Creatures soundtrack, which features one of Englert’s own songs.

What’s more, her mother is the infinitely cool director Jane Campion (responsible for The Piano, In The Cut and Bright Star, among other films). What’s not to love? When Wonderland meets her, she’s not only funny, sharp and terrifyingly intelligent, she’s also wonderfully self-deprecating. Thank goodness, then, that 2013 promises to bring us much more of her.

The whole of the London Underground seems to be plastered with your face at the moment. How does that feel?

I think it’s hilarious. I look a lot scruffier in reality than I do on the Beautiful Creatures poster. Just the other day I was walking along with my friend and we were photographing this weird, pervy looking statue that we’d seen – it was somewhere in Islington – and we didn’t notice that the billboard above it was a Beautiful Creatures ad, a massive billboard. That was the first time I had experienced that. And I looked like a total loser – it looked like I was taking photographs of myself. And then I did actually take a photo with it. So, er, yeah.

Do you think your background helps you cope with all attention?

Oh no not at all, because it was a background that was never really very ‘Hollywood’. I never really had any notion of what Hollywood was like except for Sunset Blvd. It is interesting dipping your toes in Hollywood and testing the waters there. I’m not sure how I feel about the temperature there yet, to get metaphorical…

But presumably you’re going to have to spend a lot more time there. It seems like Beautiful Creatures is being set up to be the new Twilight.

I don’t like being set up in general. I would never date in that manner if I could help it, and that’s not how I like to make films either, so any comparison is irrelevant to me.

So what was it like then, shooting a big Hollywood blockbuster?

Well I’m bred from a woman who had Kate Winslet pissing naked in a desert, and that was always going to be where I was from, and it was very strange for me. It was a different world for me, and I enjoyed it and we had a lot of fun. New Orleans, where we shot, was really fantastic and beautiful.

Were you shooting that at a similar time to In Fear then? I imagine the projects back to back seemed pretty much at odds with each other.

We shot In Fear in Cornwall in December, pretending it was autumn or spring, and I had probably two layers on and it was raining and it was muddy and it was cold. I do have to say I love and hate you [director] Jeremy Lovering, for what you did to me, but I love you a bit more so that’s ok. But yeah, so that was mad. It was literally us, a car, a cameraman, a director, a make up artist, a costume and that was it.

You have more than three films coming up in 2013 –are you finding yourself strapped for time at the moment?

Well, on a set, you’ve always got time, you’re always waiting around. There are pockets of extreme lack of sleep, and adrenaline-filled experiences, and then recently I’ve been able to have some time off to become a normal human being again, which is, I think is very important for an actor, as at the end of the day, [normality] is what we’re trying to portray. Whether you are a supernatural witch, or a 16 year old in 1960s London sleeping with your friend’s father. I approach both in the same way. I mean, that’s where the abnormal hides, in the benign.

Beautiful Creatures is out February 13.

Photographer Kim Jakobsen To
Words Adam Welch
Hair Teiji Utsumi at Terrie Tanaka using FUDGE
Make-up Emma Miles using SHU UEMURA
Alice Englert wears top by J BRAND, skirt by MAGGY FRANCES, jacket by DIANE VON FURSTENBERG and bracelet by BEX BOX

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MILAN FASHION WEEK: Menswear SS13 – in Haiku

Wonderland Staff — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:22:04 +0000

Maybe it was the heat, but Wonderland went all poetic during Milan Fashion Week. Here were some of our favourite menswear SS13 shows – in bite-size haiku form.

(1) JIL SANDER
Knit tees, Bauhaus prints:
(Jil Sander’s way of saying
“Hey, I still got it.”)

(2) VERSACE
Nips, thongs, florals, pink:
It seems that Donatella’s
Looking for a fight.

(3) ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA
In the beginning
Was the banana leaf
Now behold: the slacks.

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TESTING: THE NIKE+ FUEL BAND

Wonderland Staff — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:34:33 +0000

Wonderland indulges in a series of unfortunate experiences to test the potency of Nike’s brilliant new 24/7 sports performance monitor.

The latest bit of technical wizardry to come from Nike is the Nike+ Fuel Band, a neat little gizmo that wraps around your wrist and tells you how much activity you are doing on a daily basis, then encourages to improve upon your daily best. Lest it all get a bit too Weight Watchers, the Fuel Band measures your achievements in Fuel Points, a unit that Nike has come up with that allows all activities to be measured equally (of course, so long as they involve waggling your arms a bit). Used in conjunction with your iPhone or iPod touch, the fuelband can show you how you measure up against your friends and contacts, which is also nice, if often humbling.

To test out this intriguing piece of kit, we at Wonderland decided to take it for a spin in some of the seedy locations we honestly hardly ever go to but somehow happened to find ourselves in the past month. What is the most healthy and most fun way to spend your time, apart from just biting the bullet and doing some exercise? See below for the grand reveal, courtesy of the Nike+ Fuel Band.

Test Scenario 1: Karaoke Marathon, Farringdon

If there’s one life-affirming message to come out of the slew of Reality TV talent contests currently jamming up UK airwaves and melting the nation’s brains, it’s that many diamonds in the rough out there. You too, says the television, could have a hidden, yet prodigious musical talent that, with hard work and a positive mental attitude, will enable you to become a megastar and conquer the world. Sweet, isn’t it. But obviously, obviously not true. Which fact is easily proven by a trip to Farringdon’s Karaokebox, undeniably the most brothel-like singalong depot in London. We stumbled around for a while in the darkness (25 fuel points) before happening upon an empty room (they all look like massage parlours, it’s terrifying) and banging out some horrible covers of Spandau Ballet’s “Gold”, Mariah Carey’s “Heartbreaker” and Jennifer Lopez’s “Love Don’t Cost a Thing”, among others. The whole experience can be summed up by two scientific observations. 1. People’s singing ability varies in inverse proportion to how through-and-through talented they think they are. 2. An hour’s bawling in the darkness at Karaoke Box costs about £90 for 18 people and burns 155 Nike+ Fuel points. Which doesn’t really seem like the best deal.

Words: Adam Welch

Test Scenario 2: Vogueing, Shoreditch

Sweaty queens in lycra, fag hags struggling to keep up, house remixes of The Gossip: it could be any night out in Shoreditch. But this time, it’s Saturday afternoon at Vogueing class. Organised as part of the inimitably fabulous Fringe Gay Film Fest, the class allows participants to be schooled in the ways of Willy Ninja et al (a la Paris is Burning), with instruction coming from Nathaniel Thediscokid Parchment. “It’s great for cardio,” Nathaniel says, executing an effortless strut while we try to follow suit. OK, Madonna won’t be calling on Wonderland for her next set of backing dancers, but we still managed to finger-snap our way to 481 Nike+ Fuel Points in an hour-long class.

Words: Zing Tsjeng

Test Scenario 2: Dancing, Soho

Naturally, Wonderland is constantly on the prowl for opportunities to sweat vodka in dark dank places so when friends suggested we come to the Borderline in Soho for some dubious-looking retro indie night we simply thought “oh well, what harm can it do?” A lot, as it turned out. There’s many things we regret about this particular night but one positive outcome was recorded by our Nike+ Fuel Band: spending several hours staggering around to the limp rock cornerstones of yesteryear (remember Hot Hot Heat? Us neither) is apparently a great way to rack up a jaw-slackening 938 fuel points. Kudos to Nike and their now perspiration-coated band for riding out the night, and coming out the other side pretty much unscathed. Unlike Wonderland.

Words: Jack Mills

Verdict:

Going out dancing is definitely, definitely, very good for you and one of the best and healthiest ways you can spend your time. That is if you discount the calorie intake from alcohol, time spent lying in a motionless heap the next day and smattering of light external injuries sustained from falling over, being punched, etc. etc. Here’s hoping these factors are incorporated into the next version of the Nike+ Fuel Band software for iOs. Now there’s a pipe dream for you.

We would not recommend any of the above activities but for anyone looking for a intuitive and accurate way to measure their performance in sports and fitness on a daily basis, the Nike+ Fuel Band is available now alongside other Nike+ products at the Nike Fuelstation at the Box Park, Shoreditch. For more information on the features and capabilites of the Nike+ Fuel Band, go to the Official Nike Website

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Mount Kimbie – Carbonated

Wonderland Staff — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:42:54 +0000

The final video from Mount Kimbie’s awesome Crooks and Lovers takes us on a blissed out trip into a sweaty club. We’ve all been there, right?

Over the course of the last year, photographer Tyrone Le Bon has treated us to some sublime visuals to accompany the singles from London-based electronic duo Mount Kimbie’s stellar debut. The final installment, for new single “Carbonated” has just dropped, and while we’re sad to see an end to it all we can’t help identifying with this grimy look at the streets and nightlife of the UK. In fact, we’re perspiring just thinking about it. Check out more of Tyrone’s fantastic work here. And you can keep an eye on Mount Kimbie’s myspace while you’re at it.

Words: Adam Welch

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Dior Homme – The Wanderer + Kris Van Assche

Wonderland Staff — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:19:17 +0000

Willy Vanderperre’s new short for Dior Homme is an entrancing, surreal showcase of the brand’s autumn/winter 2011 collection. Here Dior Homme’s designer Kris Van Assche explains it all.

In the course of the past few years, Dior Homme‘s creative director Kris Van Assche has created a supremely luxurious, elegantly understated new aesthetic for the brand, focusing on subtly deconstructive tailoring details, extravagant, flowing swathes of premium fabrics and, above all, the ethos of “less is more.” The latest development of this story, the autumn/winter 2011 collection is beautifully pure, playing with a kind of American Gothic vibe via raw collared tees, voluminous black capes and, of course, Amish-style, wide-brimmed hats. If it all comes across as clean, elegant and simple, there’s a devil in the detail: jackets come in double-faced, bonded cashmere, stitch-like embroidery mimics work-in-progress in the atelier and outerwear is embellished with shawl-like lapels and asymmetric shoulder patches. We got down to the nitty gritty with Dior Homme’s head designer Kris Van Assche.

How have you developed your understanding of and experimentation with tailoring for Autumn 2011?

After the very fluid SS 2011 collection, it was a real challenge to obtain a similar form of fluidity for a winter season. Obviously, fabrics are thicker for winter, and we tend to dress in multiple layers. That is where the idea of the double sided cashmere came from: warm, luxurious coats and suits in a simple layered fabric. There was a lot of knitwear as well, with jackets and coats knit ‘in form’ like a pattern which also gave for light, comfortable pieces. We added tailoring influences in sportswear pieces and even in some jersey T-shirts. Some of the tailored pieces had embroidery which was done in the same way the inside lining of a tailored jacket is done.

Last winter was lavish yet minimal – do you think those words still hold true for this season?

I do. I want the collection to be about essential luxury. It is all about cut, quality, and comfort.

What’s the key piece in your winter collection?

There are a few: the deep brown cashmere overcoat worn over a grey cashmere suit, the cashmere knit with raw edged collar, the pleated fluid trousers.

How would you currently describe the man who wears Dior Homme?

There is not just “one man” but more like 4 or 5 different ones in my head while I am designing. That is one of the big differences between my own label KRISVANASSCHE – where I basically design what I want to wear myself – and Dior Homme, where I need to keep a more global view on men. It is not about an age or a precise professional career, but more about an attitude. The Dior Homme man looks for the right balance between creativity, comfort and quality.

If there’s one trend or style you really appreciate this season, what would it be?

There seems to be a global trend towards quality and luxury, true values that I relate to. I feel very comfortable in that “no nonsense” vibe because it is the one I have been concentrating on from day one.

Words: Adam Welch

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Feeling Guilty with Frank Miller

Wonderland Staff — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:36:13 +0000

Wonderland catches up with comic book legend and Hollywood giant Frank Miller, author of Sin City and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns to talk film, Gucci and superheroes vs Al-Qaeda.

When Gucci first released its Gucci Guilty fragrance, the heart-racing, sci-fi tinged campaign gave us plenty of things to be excited about. There was the sultry Evan Rachel Wood. There was swoonsome, all-American beefcake Chris Evans. But we were most thrilled about the short’s director, Frank Miller, who talks here to Wonderland’s editor Adam Welch.

I’m interested in how you went about putting together the story for the Gucci Guilty campaign. It seems like a short blast from a longer narrative – is this the case? What was the brief and how did you work with it?

I storyboarded the entire thing. Then I talked to Ricardo [Ruini, the art director of the video] and Frida [Giannini, Gucci’s creative director] and they very much let me have my head in which way I wanted to take things. Frida was very valuable . She gave me many notes along the way, about what Gucci’s particular needs were was, as did Ricardo. This, and my own sense of what the Gucci brand means – the sensibility of it, of sexy romanticism, of a collision of the classic and the chic, informed the story and its visuals. Starting with a longer, more textured narrative, a main challenge, as well as a delight, was compressing that narrative into a string of visual signals chosen to create a richer story for the viewer. Much as in making comics, I left many scenes to to the viewer’s imagination.

I did my best to come up with a sweet, sexy love story for Gucci.

The story is a very short bit of business about a pair of young, sexy people who have a tryst that is unexpected to both of them. It is a little bit poignant, a bit bittersweet, in that they will never meet again. But it is one of those memories that one keeps for a lifetime.

What happens next. Or, perhaps, more importantly, what happened before? And where are we?

I’d rather leave that a mystery. I could ramble on about who these two people are, where they came from, and so on, but I’d rather let the viewer’s own imagination fill in the blanks.

Do you think it’s possible to tell a story in one minute? Or is that just enough time to grab someone’s attention?

FM: A story can be told in four words. Here’s one I wrote in six words, for another client: “With bloody hands, I said goodbye”. The excitement of reading a comic book or viewing a film lies greatly in what is evoked, rather than outright stated. Much of my job is to stimulate the audience to create context, to create past and future. Fiction is the art of the unseen.

How important is the city to you in your work? Are there any real-world cities that you draw upon for inspiration?

Like everything else, the city is meant to be a reflection of Gucci and the sensibility. I draw mostly from New York and Los Angeles, but also from fictional visions, like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. My desire in the “Guilty” films was to make everything on the screen beautiful, every last inch of it, so that the cars and buildings and actors would be in tune with what the Gucci name embodies.

Do you have any favourite architects, or ones that are so awful that they inspire you in another way?

Many favorites, particularly the giants of Art Deco, the then-revolutionary works of Frank Lloyd Wright. The imagining of Syd Meade also inspires. The bad stuff, I largely ignore. An ugly subject makes for an ugly picture.

What for you are the benefits and limitations of working in film?

Film has been a whole new box of toys for me. Working with other talents, with designers, animators, cinematographers, has been a storyteller’s dream.

And what came first for you, film or comics – the two seem to have heavily influenced each other in your work.

I treat my work in film like I do in a comic book. I start with a story line and my pictures flow from it. I love drawing, so I draw every shot and work out several different versions off of each shot. There are times though, where the shots just leap out of my head. When I’m really on a roll, they come to mind so quickly I barely have time to scribble them down.

In the Gucci ad, you’ve used color in a very specific way – can you explain the rationale?

Storytelling. Color not only attracts the eye, in provokes it as well. I’m sparing in its use because color is quite powerful.

What other projects have you got on the go at the moment?

Right now I’m doing two graphic novels, one is called Xerxes, which is another story about Ancient Greece’s war with he Persian Empire. The other is called Holy Terror, which is a superhero-type story with a character I made up who battles Al-Qaeda. After that, I hope to be shooting Sin City 2.

What would be your dream project, movie-wise. Or are you increasingly tired of Hollywood?

FM: I love writing and directing. I’m having a better time each time out. Film is a wonderful form. And yes, I have a dream project or two, but I’d feel foolish talking in public about them until they become more than dreams. And no, I don’t feel the least bit tired.

What are your guilty pleasures?

That would be telling.

The new Gucci Guilty Intense fragrance is released today. You can watch the director’s cut of Frank Miller’s Gucci Guilty campaign here

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Shagging to Crystal Antlers

Wonderland Staff — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 11:30:50 +0000

Crystal Antlers’ newest album Two Way Mirror released on 1 August with their newest track “Summer Solstice.” Wonderland’s Adam Welch talks to the band about their sound and what they want want fans to do when shagging to their songs.

Describe your music in five words…
Sis-Boom-Bop-Bip-Pow

Your second full length album is also your first as a self released full-length album – how are you finding the process of being fully in charge of your music?
It’s nice to have control, not that we didn’t have creative control while with Touch & Go, but there were a lot of other people involved and sometimes that made things confusing. When you’re funding it yourself (and you have a credit card!) you can spend recklessly and make things that a label might not be willing to. You can also do hand made things on a smaller scale, like the Bonus Package thing we made that comes with clear vinyl, a whole extra 10″ EP, a metal lapel pin, CD’s and a tote bag…

How has your sound developed since your last release?
We’ve always experimented a lot with our writing so it’s sometimes hard to tell what’s changed from one release to the next. It’s all just building a bigger picture of what our sound is and can be. I know we reclaimed some of the space that was on our first EP, but with a lot more focus on melody, especially when it came to the vocals. This was the first record where I really had the opportunity to spend the time that I wanted to on singing. I think also we allowed things to be a bit more intimate on this record.

You spent time in rural Mexico to work on the album – how did your surroundings inspire the music?
The surroundings were incredibly beautiful, but I’m not sure that they directly influenced the music. There’s an attitude in Mexico and a very layed-back approach to living (best described in the introduction to William S. Burroughs’ Queer) that’s unmistakable after you spend some time there. I think we may have been most inspired by that approach and applied it to the writing/recording process later on in the production.

What other inspirations did you feed in to the album?
A lot of personal experience and stories from people around me…

You worked with Jack Endino this time, who also worked with Nirvana on their debut album – has Nirvana been an inspiration for Crystal Antlers?
Not really until recently. I was never really a Nirvana fan because it was so overplayed when I was a kid, but now I can appreciate it more. Kurt Cobain was honest and wrote beautifully simple songs that everyone could relate to, even if they couldn’t understand the words. That’s hard to do, and there hasn’t really been anyone like him since…Jack Endino is one of my favorite people that I’ve had the opportunity to work with. He’s very straightforward, down to earth & probably one of the hardest working producer/mixers out there -really funny too.

Where did the album title, “Two-Way Mirror”, come from?
It was the title of one of the last songs we recorded for the record, and the themes and tone of the song just seemed to sum it all up. It’s about self-reflection through isolation where everyone can see in.

What do you see when you look in a mirror?
Looks like I could use a shave and a haircut. What do you see?

The video for your track, “Summer Solstice,” has flashes of penetrative sex – are you trying to get your fans to shag via
subliminal message?
Yes, the director Michael Reich is strange. I’m not sure where that came from exactly, he explained something similar to me while we were brainstorming about the video, but the concept was originally going to be far more NSFW…I think even the description would be a little much to share in an interview.Yes all fans should shag, but use protection.

Beyond Barry White, what’s the best music for getting down to?
Well apparently Summer Solstice, but otherwise I guess it usually depends on the situation. I like Tangerine Dream, soundtracks & on occasion even some cheesy Led Zeppelin…..

Interview by Adam Welch

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Wim Wenders’ Pina

Wonderland Staff — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:54:34 +0000

Wim Wenders has stepped into the third dimension with his latest film Pina, a first in the European Art Cinema.

“It’s hard to really say it’s a full-on documentary,” says legendary German director Wim Wenders about his latest, 3D extravaganza Pina. And it’s true, though Wenders is well known for his incisive, technically innovative documentaries, including Tokyo Ga (a film that’s sort-of about Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, but really about flashing pachinko machines) and the Academy Award-nominated Buena Vista Social Club, Pina is a far cry from his previous work in this, or any genre.

Celebrating the innovative creations of the late Pina Bausch, a pioneering choreographer who, via her emotive, cathartic plays, invented the concept of Tanztheater, Pina is part performance movie, part elegy and – thanks to its mindblowing use of the third dimension – part fairground ride. It centers around four live recordings of Bausch’s work, performed by her dance company and filmed with an elaborate crane apparatus that takes the viewer within inches of the panting, sweating and wildly thrashing performers.

The 3D is beautiful – perhaps the most sophisticated, subtle, and immersive use of this emerging technology that has ever been accomplished. But the film’s history is a troubled one. Wenders and Bausch, who first met in 1985, had been talking about making a film together ever since, with little progress made because of Wenders’ concern that traditional cinema could hardly do justice to the sheer power of Bausch’s work. “Anybody I ever took to see a play of Pina’s – even tough guys who said, ‘Oh, dance is not for me, you’re out of your mind’ – they sat next to me and they started weeping because they could not believe that Pina’s work could concern them that much,” he says, abstractedly sipping tea at London’s Cavendish Hotel. It was only when Wenders encountered this decade’s obsession – 3D cinema – via U2’s U2-3D film at Cannes Film Festival in 2007, that he thought “that maybe that would put me in a position to participate more. Let people participate in a different way.” “That’s when we really started to prepare,” he says, “when we decided we would do it with this unknown technology.”

By 2009, Wenders was set to film the first few 3D test shots with Bausch. But then, completely without warning, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and died five days later. “For me, the movie was over,” says Wenders. “It was only weeks later that it dawned on us that it really was wrong not to do it. The dancers had given us an example – they had even danced the night that she died. They performed crying their hearts out, saying Pina had taught them, in spite of everything, to dance.”

So Wenders embarked on a new, unknown film. “Even the concept that Pina and I had put together was quite an elaborate one,” he says. “Then that concept was down the drain and it was really flying with no instruments.” What he ended up with, after months of struggling with his massive 3D cameras – and their initial inability to capture the explosive movements of Bausch’s troupe without flickering and strobing – is a solemn, but poetic tribute to a woman who found a new, physical language to communicate the pain and adulation of human existence, composed from snippets of performance, archive footage, and interviews with Bausch’s troupe of longtime collaborators and friends. “I think what really connected us was a sense of research, and starting from reality, whatever was coming out of it,” Wenders says of his relation to Bausch “All of Pina’s work started, radically, from experience. With improvisation and going deeper and deeper. Then she turned what she found into a dance.”

As if to emphasize this connection between Bausch’s Tanztheater and the keenly felt emotions of everyday life, Wenders also punctuated Pina with scenes of dancers performing in mundane locations around Wupperthal, the home of the Pina Bausch troupe, enacting the snippets of her work to which they are most deeply connected. At one point, one of Bausch’s disciples stomps around the gliding carriage of the city’s funicular rail service, devastating, explosive noises emanating from behind a thick mass of hair thrown over her face. At another, a graceful duet unfolds under a concrete overpass. It’s at times devastating, but always, thanks to those dorky 3D spectacles, completely entrancing. “ It goes to show that 3D can be taken seriously as a medium,” says Wenders. “I’m totally convinced.”

Pina was released April 22.

This article first appeared in Wonderland Issue 26, April/May 2011

Words: Adam Welch

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Brad Goreski

Wonderland Staff — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:23:53 +0000

If there was one lesson to be learned from the first three seasons of Bravo’s fashion-reality hit The Rachel Zoe Project, it was to expect the unexpected. No, the Versace gown would not turn up on time. Yes, they were “literally going to have to pull dresses out our asses”. Every two minutes, it seemed like there was a new – how to put it? – oh yes, “clusterfuck,” in the world of celebrity styling. But perhaps the biggest surprise of all was how Brad Goreski – the defiantly upbeat, decidedly witty, nattily dressed young fashionista-on-the-make, who was hired as Zoe’s fashion assistant in the first episode of season one – became the show’s breakout star.

Goreski’s among those few characters you see on reality TV shows that you might want to hang out with as well as just watch. Goreski is generally adored by Bravo audiences. But since the third season aired, he’s also become something of a style icon, and even a bit of a sex symbol. Now, while Zoe is preparing to have her first child and embark upon a fourth series of The Rachel Zoe Project, Goreski’s decided to go and do his own thing (his first red carpet client is Jessica Alba). Sadly, then, we’ll have to mourn his absence on our television screens, but judging by his recent work for InStyle and his brand new blog (bradgoreski.blogspot.com) it seems likely we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this rising young stylist in the future.

Has being a TV star let you discover an exhibitionist side to yourself?
Urm, maybe. I never really thought about that. I wore a T-shirt in the swimming pool until I was 18 years old. I was a chubby kid and I didn’t really like showing my body. And I think, you know, part of the liberation came from Terry Richardson – the photos that Terry took of me last year. I had never been exposed in that way before. I know it was just shirtless but for me it was a big deal, because I’m not really that guy. In a sense, now that that’s out there it’s helped me be a little loser.

Do you think it’s good that shows like The Rachel Zoe Project expose the inner workings of the fashion industry, which is based upon exclusivity?
I think it’s the new wave. I didn’t go to the shows in Europe and I can sit at my desk, my dog on my lap, with a cup of tea, in my sweats, and watch a live stream of Burberry or Prada … The entire industry has embraced a more global attitude. I don’t know if it’s all that exclusive anymore because every shoot now comes with behind-the-scenes footage. I think the docudrama is so fascinating as it is, and was such fun to work for. Rachel has such a distinct vision that’s made an impact on fashion and styling. So it’s a nice thing to show people her world and the people who have surrounded her.

So you’re in New York at the moment. How is it being on your own?
It’s been great. I’ve been really, really lucky to be doing so many great jobs. I’m just like totally grateful that people have been wanting to work with me. I’ve been working with Instyle and Details and starting to build up my portfolio and, recently, I worked with Kate Spade on the New York Fashion Week presentation. The show definitely gave me a platform to do that. But people still want to see your work at the end of the day.

What’s been your best job since you’ve gone solo?
One of my favourite jobs so far was Jessica Alba at this year’s Baftas; she wore an Atelier Versace gown. I also did a piece that’s out right now featuring Liya Kebede for InStyle, using the Jil Sander collection.

Oh yeah I saw it on your new blog… I love that you’ve just done one post but you’ve still got 90 comments.
Yeah, one of my blogger friends was like “Do you know how major that is?” and I was like “Oh really, cool.” The next one will be a photoshoot of my friends that I did on the way home from a club with an iPhone at four o’clock in the morning.

Who would you love to style now? I’m watching this J-LO video now by the way.
Oh my God. Major. Are you gagging? She’s working it, right? Who would I love to style … You won’t be expecting this, but Juno Temple, I love. I’m also a big fan of Emma Watson. I love the Brits.

Are you going to be back on TV any time soon?
That’s TBC. Nothing right now. There’s been interest, yeah, but there’s already so much. I’ve been working between New York and LA constantly. It’s really important to me right now to be able to focus 100 per cent on my jobs and my clients. But who knows, big question mark. There’s so many question marks in my life right now. The only thing that’s absolutely constant in my life is the rack of clothes. In my hotel room, in my house, wherever it is, there’s always lots of clothes, be it mine or be it women’s. My closet is expanding.

Photography: Kevin Amato
Fashion: Brad Goreski
Words: Adam Welch

A full version of this article first appeared in Wonderland Issue 26, April/May 2011

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